Samara McIlroy | Art blog

2011 ends

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:51:45 +1100

So I have graduated from my BFA in Sculpture! But I continue to be busy. About to head off for a workshop in Bronze and Aluminium Sculpture in Toowoomba, but writing this post at my mother’s house in East Gippsland, where the internet is powered by generator, solar panels and satellite.

My ArtStart Grant application to fund travel to a Conference in Portland, Oregon, visit artist’s collectives in the US and for a new laptop, was unsuccessful, but the (f)route project is going ahead, with a funded artist residency in March/April this year, which will be based in here in East Gippsland.

My application for Inflight WAS successful and the project is scheduled for May, to coincide with the 2012 Open Engagement Conference. So I have been sweating over an application which will involve an artwalk/tour to be held in Hobart at the same time as the conference. The idea is that the event will stimulate an virtual/online engagement and dialogue between geographically separate socially-engaged artists that will create new relationships and community links. Also planning to contribute to Inflight’s January fundraiser and Touchy Feely #1 - a project created by artists Amy Spiers and Pip Stafford, but both will be from a distance, as I’m not heading back to Tasmania until early February.

Meanwhile, I have been procrastinating terribly over a blog post for The Yeoman’s Project, even though Ian Milliss has been incredibly kind and patient with me. A crucial component of the piece is a map of my father’s garden, which I am waiting for him to draft. I’ve extended my deadline several times, sorry Ian.

The image is of our PARK(ing) Day event. The Recyclibrary was hugely successful and is continuing to pop-up around Hobart. Please subscribe to the mailing list, donate your unwanted books or visit the Recyclibrarians as they spread their BOOKLOVE.

I’m still here

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:35:04 +1000

To let you know I am still here is the purpose of this blog post. I do still inhabit this bit of cyberspace. However, I have had very limited access to internet access over the last month.

Things I have been doing?

Interviewing my parent’s on their gardening practices, to get into practice for the upcoming
(f)route project. Making work for my final submission for University, to get that BFA. Spontaneously organising PARK(ing) Day events around Hobart, and applying for an ArtStart Grant to fund travel to the Open Engagement Conference in Portland, Oregon, visit artist’s collectives in the US and for a new laptop. And other stuff, including reading up on Relational Aesthetics for my final essay.

Next, I’ll write an application for Inflight, and a blog post for The Yeoman’s Project.

So I’m still here.

Some fruity links

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:40:03 +1000

Mapping, Diagrams and Data Visualisation:My City=My Body by Tuur Van Balen Infographics by Charles Larkin Mapped Up Newsfeeds application Obama Weather Crappy Graphs Hand Drawn Map Association Mark Lombardi The Map Room : Blog Making Visible the Invisible: Seattle City Library Jonathan Harris : Information Maps http://thediagram.com/Complex Net Art Diagram Burak ArikanWebcrushes:http://www.harrellfletcher.com/#http://evenmorelegendary.com/http://salrandolph.com/http://dianelandry.com/http://www.temporaryservices.org/New ways of meaning making:Futurelab Reading Images: Multimodality, Representation and New Media Adrian Miles: Real Life Digital Storytelling at ACMI Collaborative mapping projectsmore links to come...

Altar of fire

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:26:59 +1000

This film records a 12 day ritual performed by Mambudiri Brahmins in Kerala, southwest India, in April 1975. This event was possibly the last performance of the Agnicayana, a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back 3,000 years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual. Long considered extinct and never witnessed by outsiders, the ceremonies require the participation of seventeen priests, involve libations of Soma juice and oblations of other substances, all preceded by several months of preparation and rehearsals. They include the construction, from a thousand bricks, of a fire altar in the shape of a bird.

a film by Robert Gardner and J.F. Staal for The Film Study Center at Harvard University
distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Purchase: http://www.der.org/films/altar-of-fire.html

Direct experience and dead art

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:03:25 +1000

“SOGYAL: [Laughs] Well, I remember this one particular moment, especially. It was when I was about seven or eight years of age, and we were traveling; we had left eastern Tibet to come to where the monastery of my master was, where I was born, because, as you know, the Chinese were taking over our country, and we slowly had to escape. And so when we were traveling in central Tibet, and there were many, many holy, sacred places of saints and masters, and one great master called Padma Sambhava, who in many ways brought Buddhism to Tibet; he's recognized as the second Buddha, and who in many ways is the author of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And it was in one of his caves, one of the caves which is said to be blessed by his wisdom mind -- you know, this special cave. I remember when we were there, my master was practicing in this cave, and so he called me over, and I was the only one there, and he just called me over and asked me to sit, and indicated that he was going to introduce me. In some ways it was a complete surprise. And then as he sat there he invoked the lineage masters; he invoked all the Buddhas and the masters, you see, and their blessings. And then, what was extraordinary, I remember him transforming completely. He became like, you know, really a Buddha. I knew he was a Buddha also, but then that to me became really manifest more. And at that particular moment, you see, when he introduced, my mind was just completely blown. In fact it was almost at that particular moment there was no such thing as mind, like in a sense mind was only concepts, and he revealed a kind of gap, an openness, a space in which I could really understand, but without any concept -- a kind of -- it's very difficult to describe in words, this particular state. It was a really direct experience, in that you came to know who you are really, and what life is all about. And you came to really realize what enlightenment is, or what at least the seed of enlightenment is, you see. So it was an extraordinary experience; in fact to this day I remember that place where I was sitting. Somehow that particular memory has been kind of locked in my mind, and it was really extraordinary. It has become really the basis.”

THE TIBETAN VIEW OF LIFE AND DEATH with SOGYAL RINPOCHE transcript from the series Thinking Allowed, Conversations On the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery, with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove

This is a stunning and beautifully crystalline description of the kind of direct experience that I (arrrogantly, you might say) would like my artwork to give space to. It is also a source of great frustration, as so much of what I really end up putting in the exhibition space seems dead, a mere residue of the momentary. This is the problem I seem to be dealing with right now.

Perhaps it has to do with the way I experience time. Time (something I mostly experience as linear) can throw up, in a single moment, an experience that instantly dissolves the linear, and removes perceptual barriers. At that moment I experience time as a kind of spiral (this is the best way I can describe it visually). Do I need to just accept that the person who may have that kind of direct experience of my work isn’t herenow?

Are all the stories and myths we carry with us simply residues of that original experience? Does their real power lie in the intentional(ality) behind their re-telling and sharing? This intention, then, must come from a place of wisdom, compassion and love. Perhaps that all creativity is.